All About Family
by hypergolic
Summary: An old acquaintance brings out the protector in Horatio. Investigation and fluff.
1. Intro

This was written as a Christmas present for a friend who I know as HoratioMarisol, although all who stumble across it are welcome to read it.

This is my first attempt at fanfiction so please be patient with me. The idea came out of tinkering around with a roleplay story and one phrase from a PM.

Warning: There is a spoiler for Season 5 Episode 1 (Rio) in the first chapter – after that you should be safe.


	2. Chapter 1

Horatio leant back in his chair, stretching his arms out above his head and felt the tension that throughout the day had knotted its way into every muscle in his shoulders, pulling at his nerves. He felt the vertebrae at the base of his spine crack and a momentary wave of relief swept through his body. He swivelled the desk chair around to glance at the clock mounted on the wall of the office. 10.15pm, it was definitely time to go home. Scribbling one more signature on the bottom of an official crime scene report Horatio closed the manila folder and tossed it onto the stack of other folders that already sat in an untidy pile in his out-box. He took a moment to savour the sight of an empty in-box, a rare sight for the CSI supervisor who usually put off the completion of paperwork until it was absolutely necessary, preferring to work in the field rather than be stuck behind a desk. Sighing, he realised that the in-box would probably be filled to overflowing with more paperwork by the time he started his next shift in just a few hours time. He ran his fingers through his red-gold hair, pushing it back off his forehead, where it had fallen as he had worked, and blinked his clear blue eyes a few times, to try and rid his retinas of the text that seemed to be imprinted on the back of his eyelids.

As he reached out his hand to flick off the lamp that illuminated the room his eyes paused on the photograph set in a simple silver frame that sat on the corner of the desk. A happy family stared back at him from the glossy image, a family filled with laughter and peace as they decorated a Christmas tree, a family that had been torn apart since that photograph was taken. Yelina and Ray Junior were still in Brazil, trying to create some semblance of normality in their lives. Horatio's gaze lingered for a second on the picture of his brother, who sat smiling out of the two dimensional portrait, a silly paper hat perched on his head at a ridiculous angle. It was Raymond's face that haunted Horatio's dreams when he eventually managed to catch the occasional hour or two of sleep. Whenever Horatio closed his eyes he was faced with the image of Ray lying on the dusty floor of a hut in the inner-city rainforest in Rio, his battered and bloody form struggling to survive, and as Horatio held his brother in his arms he took one last rattling breath and the life escaped his body. Leaving Horatio with an image that could never be erased from his memory. It was in the form of Raymond's ghost that Horatio's conscience appeared. _It was your fault_, it whispered to him, _you sent us to Rio, and you let me die._ Horatio sighed.

Finally pulling his eyes away from the photograph Horatio snapped off the desk lamp and plunged the room into darkness. A faint light from the labs below filtered through the frosted glass doors throwing everything into vague silhouette, casting blurry shadows across the coarse grey carpeting of the office. He stood up, prying himself from the chair that seemed to have moulded to his seated form after what seemed like an eternity of paperwork-filled monotony, and turned to look out of the plate glass window that stretched from floor to ceiling. From this vantage point he could see the expanse of Miami stretching out before him, here and there the glint of neon lit up the night sky, reminding him that Miami was truly a city that never slept.

He raised his hand to his mouth as he tried, and failed, to stifle a yawn. _Yes, definitely time to go home _he thought. Turning away from the window Horatio pulled his jacket off the back of the chair, he had barely slipped one arm into the sleeve when his cell phone sprang into life; buzzing and vibrating in the inside pocket of the garment. Horatio cursed silently. _Damn it,_ he thought. _Surely the night shift should be taking any call-outs at this time._ He was so tired, no, it was way passed tired, he was weary to his very soul. But if the city needed him then he would never turn a deaf ear to its calls for help, this was his city and he had sworn to protect it the day he had first held his badge. So rather than letting the call go to voicemail he flipped the phone open and raised it to his ear.

"Caine."

"Horatio?"

The voice on the other end of the call was not what he had expected, it wasn't the crisp and efficient voice of the dispatch operator. Instead there was a lot of background noise, a muffled bass thumping out a powerful beat, and in the foreground Horatio could distinguish harsh, ragged breathing as the caller sobbed into the mouthpiece of the phone.

"Hello? Who is this?" He prompted.

"Horatio, I need your help." The plea was followed by another chest-wracking sob.

He didn't need to hear any more. His mind made the connection somewhere in the depths of his memory. Synapses sparked in recognition, and Horatio was able to put a face to the voice.

"Sharon? Is that you honey? Where are you?"

"Um, I'm using a payphone. Um, I think the club's called Hades. Horatio, I'm scared."

He heard the beeps that signalled her money was running out, and that the call was about to be abruptly cut-off.

"I want you to stay right where you are. Ok? Don't move, I'm coming to get you sweetheart." He all but yelled the last phrase down the phone as he grabbed his keys off the desk and ran out of the door. He sprinted through the office, and slid neatly into the elevator whose doors had just started to close.

The doors closed with a hiss, and the metal box jerked into its leisurely action accompanied by a rumble and whirring as the cogs in the lift mechanism grumbled about their usage for what must be the millionth time that day. As he continuously and desperately punched the button for the ground floor, willing the lift to travel faster, a series of images flicked through his mind. A dull grey hospital corridor. A middle-aged woman, clearly in agony from fresh burns on her arm. A little girl peering at him curiously, her face and figure mostly obscured by her mother's injured body. A year later he had seen the face of that little girl again, this time swathed in bandages and hooked up to an endless array of monitors, which would alert doctors in an instant if her short life were to be mercilessly snuffed out. The images that appeared in his mind told a story, much like a comic book, but so far this story had no happy ending. They told of the circumstances of how Horatio had first encountered Sharon five years ago. Horatio had just closed a case, and a doctor from the emergency room had called him, wanting to call in a favour. Horatio had walked the by now familiar corridors of Jackson Memorial, uncertain of what awaited him. Snippets of conversation floated into his conscious thoughts.

"_She's got second degree burns on both her arms, Lieutenant. She's been admitted to the ER so many times in the past year that her medical record reads like a novel. She's had broken bones and deep bruising, even a reported blackout from asphyxia. It's a textbook case of spousal abuse. " The doctor had sighed heavily, domestic violence was an all too common sight for him. Horatio knew that the phrase medical staff attributed to these beaten women was 'The Silent Ones', women who would become familiar faces to the ER personnel after frequent visits to fix up their broken bones and ripped flesh, but who would never press charges against the men that had sometimes beaten them within an inch of their desperate lives. The bastards that they would return to time and time again after a simple apology and a cheap bunch of flowers, no matter how many times they snapped bones and tinged skin a multicoloured patchwork of blue and purple bruises._

"_Why this one, Doctor?" Horatio had asked, curious why this case should be singled out for his attention when so many cases of abuse passed through the hospital on a weekly, if not daily basis.._

"_Take a look." Was the only response that was offered in answer to his question. The doctor indicating with a jab of his thumb towards the curtain that surrounded a treatment bay._

_At first as he leaned his head around the curtain Horatio could see nothing that would make this case unique, just a middle-aged woman lying flat on the hospital bed. But then a small movement caught his eye. Behind the woman's prone form he could just make out a small, pale white face framed with blonde hair. Dark, chocolate brown eyes regarded him curiously. He moved beyond the curtain, crouching down in front of the little girl as the doctor entered behind him, talking to the patient, who appeared to be the girl's mother, about her injury in an attempt to distract her, giving Horatio a chance to talk to the child undisturbed. As he got a better look at the child he saw what had so bothered the doctor. A series of bruises stretched up the child's arm. Horatio's eyes widened and darted over to the doctor, who met his glance and nodded imperceptibly to indicate that this was the reason for his calling in the favour. Presumably the scum responsible for her mother's list of injuries was no longer satisfied with taking out his wrath on the adult woman, and had started to turn his violent attention to the child as well._

"_Hey honey. My name is Horatio Caine, I'm a police officer."_

_He had noted the puzzled look that children, and quite a few adults got when he told them his first name, and smiled._

"_I know, strange name huh?"_

_Instead of the 'yeah' he'd expected, she had screwed up her face a little, seemingly pondering the question for several seconds before she answered._

"_Um, a bit, but I think I heard it before somewhere. Besides, my dad has a friend called Zeus, that's way weirder than Horatio."_

_He rocked back on his heels, and grinned. The honesty of youth was always refreshing after a long day dealing with the complicated lies that adults wove around themselves. _

_She had been barely ten years old on that occasion. Of course, once again the mother had refused to press charges, had given some fabricated story to child services about the bruises on the child's arms, it had frustrated him that there was nothing he could do. The next time he'd seen the little girl, whose name he had discovered was Sharon, was just over a year later, she had been lying unconscious in another hospital bed. The steady beeps from monitors told him that she was stable, but far from well. He later found out that the bandages covering her head had been masking a fracture to her skull which had caused some swelling to the brain, although the swelling had subsided before any lasting damage had been done. Other casts held together fractures in her left wrist and right leg. Horatio had instantly seen red, an inescapable fury penetrating deep into his brain. He had kicked down the door to Sharon's family home, pulled the weapon from the holster at his side and held the cold barrel to the forehead of Sharon's father, whose knuckles were red and raw from where he had beaten his only daughter into the state Horatio had just witnessed._

_He looked deep into Jack Heith's eyes and saw him flinch as he cocked his gun, the firing pin ready and waiting to discharge a bullet through this monster's skull. _

"_Coward." Horatio had growled. His finger grazing lightly against the trigger. Then a pinpoint of light fought its way through the red haze that had engulfed his consciousness, dissipating the hatred that he felt. In his mind an image of Sharon's face came into focus. _Horatio, you're not a cold-blooded killer, you are better than him. Don't throw everything away for this animal. _The image intoned the calming words to him. He had let the gun fall to his side, and turned to walk away. As he reached the door he turned and left Heith with a warning._

"_Whenever you turn around I'll be in the shadows waiting, whenever you raise your fists I'll be watching you. And if you harm one more hair on their heads I swear I'll hunt you down and kill you."_

Now Sharon was in trouble, and he was the only one who could help. The elevator jolted to a stop, pulling Horatio out of his memories and back into the present. He was slipping out between the metal doors before they'd even finished sliding back and set off at a run out of the building.

The Hummer screeched out of the parking lot of the MDPD building, lurching forward as the tyres stopped burning rubber onto the asphalt and gained purchase on the ground, instantly pushing the vehicle forward. He flicked the sirens and lights on and pressed his foot further down on the accelerator pedal. The grey bodywork of the department Hummer became a blur through the neon-lit streets of Miami, as he swerved in and out of the other vehicles on the roads and ran red lights at the intersections he encountered.

Horatio eventually slowed the Hummer, and switched off the lights and siren as he came close to his destination. He knew the Hades nightclub, he'd been invited to the opening night celebration, it was a new club that had recently taken the place of the last big thing, The life-expectancy of clubs in Miami was realistically just a few short months, a year if they were lucky, before the fickle party-goers deserted the dance floors in search of the next big thrill, the next clever gimmick.

He saw the payphone, just around the corner from the club's main entrance, and pulled the Hummer to a stop right beside it. He climbed quickly down from the driver's seat and scanned the dark sidewalk, trying to locate Sharon. He felt a hand resting lightly on his shoulder, and he turned to see a young woman in her early to mid twenties standing next to him. She wore a figure-hugging red dress that left very little to the imagination, bleach-blonde hair falling in waves over her bare shoulders. Her eyes flicked up to meet his briefly and then flicked away again seductively in a practiced action. She moved her head closer to his and whispered,

"Hey baby, you wanna party?" As she spoke she ran a manicured fingertip down the length of his chest.

_You've gotta be kidding_. He thought, rolling his eyes slightly. He caught her hand, stopping the progress of her fingertip, and with his other hand pulled back his jacket to reveal the golden badge and gun that he wore hooked on his belt. He had to stop himself from laughing as he saw the thought shoot through her mind. _Shit, he's a cop_. She muttered something, and hurried red-faced back to where a group of her girl friends stood watching the exchange between their friend and this handsome redheaded stranger. A hoot of laughter rose from the women, as his acquaintance related the source of her embarrassment. Another hurdle dealt with he went back to his search.

"Sharon?" He called.

No response. He walked down the street for a few metres, finding an alley that acted as a service entrance for the club. At first he thought the alley was empty, but then he heard a harsh intake of breath. Looking for the source of the staccato breathing he saw the figure huddled in a corner.

"Sharon?"

At the sound of her name she scrambled to get up, and identifying the newcomer as a friend, started running towards Horatio, thundering into him and causing him to take a step back to stabilize himself from the impact. She threw her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly. He placed a comforting arm around her shoulders.

"Whoa kiddo, hey, it's ok. I'm here now."

She looked up, a desperate fear obvious in her eyes. She pulled back from Horatio and he was shocked to see blood smeared on the front of her t-shirt.

"Sharon, what's going on?"

She was unable to answer coherently. "Mom…" was all she could manage.


	3. Chapter 2

_Righty – Short chapter this time. I'll be updating with a chapter a day til I've posted it all (as long as my computer doesn't have a funny turn and is working ok)._

_I'm glad you're liking it so far!_

_----------------------------------------------------------_

Horatio stood with his back braced against the wall to one side of the door, his gun raised, the barrel pointing upwards. He looked over at the uniformed officer that mirrored his posture to the other side of the door, a nodded response gave him the 'good to go' signal. He leant around and with his left hand balled into a fist hammered on the door.

"MDPD. Mr Heith, open the door." He shouted. When there was no response he turned again to the officer giving an order, "Break it down."

It took just one brutal kick in the right place, and an almighty crash, harmonised by the sound of splintering wood, heralded their entrance into the house. Horatio entered first; gun pointing directly in front of him, the officer following him through the newly created aperture, standing back to back with Horatio his gun covering the corners of the room that the Lieutenant's couldn't.

"Clear." The officer spoke clearly, giving the signal for more uniformed police to enter the room ready to sweep the house. Heavy footsteps from police issue boots pounded throughout the house.

"Clear." The kitchen.

"Clear." The bathroom.

"Clear…clear…clear." The bedrooms.

The final 'clear' from the lounge was followed by "Uh, Lieutenant, you should see this. I've got two bodies in here."

"Dispatch, I need a rescue unit at our location, asap. Two vics." Horatio said into the police radio.

"Understood Lieutenant, rescue unit on its way." Came the crackly response from the radio speaker.

As soon as Horatio entered the room the stink of death saturated his olfactory senses, the metallic smell of blood lingered, heavy in the air. He sighed as he recognised the lifeless forms of Jack and Linda Heith, Sharon's parents. Horatio studied the positions of the bodies; Linda's was slumped in a seated position in an easy chair, a violent gunshot wound in her chest had now ceased leaking the dark red blood, which had pooled in her lap and soaked into the chair's upholstery. In comparison, the male victim lay several metres away, face down on the floor, apparently shot in the back of the head. The officer who had been set the task of clearing this room, circled around to the other side of the male victim's body.

"Gun." He called to Horatio, and kicked the weapon he had seen gently away from Jack Heith's limp hand.

Horatio understood the reason for his caution. They hadn't yet checked for vital signs, so they didn't yet know for certain that both victims were dead. Just a few months ago a perp who had been playing dead had gunned down three cops. Horatio bent down and placed two fingers on Linda's neck, and shook his head. The officer copied his actions, checking Jack for signs of life. As he stood again, he too shook his head, and Horatio lifted the radio to his lips again.

"Dispatch, cancel the rescue unit, vics are DOA. We need the M.E."

"Copy that Lieutenant. I'll page the on-call M.E."

As he left the room, he found the rest of the assault team who had cleared the house waiting in the hallway.

"Gentlemen, thank-you for your help on this one, but right now this is a crime scene. I need you to wait outside, one of my team will need to take some reference samples of boot prints and fingerprints so we can eliminate you from any evidence we gather."

There were nods from the officers as they trooped out of the house to await the arrival of the CSIs. They'd encountered enough crime scenes to know the drill by now.

Horatio pulled his cellphone out of his jacket pocket, and punched a series of numbers. The call was answered after a couple of rings.

"Calleigh? I'm sorry to call you after shift, but I need the best team on a case that's come up… You ready to pull a double shift? Hang on, I'll give you the address…"

_sorry it's so short – I promise the next chapter's longer._


	4. Chapter 3

_A much longer chapter than yesterday's offering._

_Thank-you for the reviews – It means a lot!!!!_

A couple of hours later Horatio was pushing past the doors into the reception of the MDPD building. He stopped at the main desk and greeted Officer Paula Muro.

"Hey Paula, how's Sharon doing?"

After he had found her outside the club Horatio had taken Sharon straight back to the lab. There had been no time to process her clothes at the time, so he'd left her in his office with instructions to stay put and to touch nothing. He'd also asked Paula, the duty officer, to check on her every half hour.

"She's Ok Lieutenant, she's pretty shaken up, but the last time I checked she'd fallen asleep on the couch."

He flashed her a grateful smile.

"Thanks. Listen, I'm going to need to process her for evidence, can you get hold of child services. We're Gonna have to do this by the book, so she's going to need a case-worker."

"I'll get on it now Lieutenant."

Horatio stood outside the glass walls of his office for quite a while just watching the girl sleep. Her hair had fallen across her face as she lay on her side on the couch, strands of hair were blown out and then sucked back to her face again as she breathed steadily. Now that he had a chance to look at her Horatio was surprised to see just how much she had grown since the last time he had seen her. She wasn't a little girl any more, now a young woman had taken the place of the shy, yet inquisitive child that he had once known. He slid into the office without making a sound and lowered himself cautiously onto the other end of the couch. Sharon made a small noise in her sleep, and shifted her body position slightly, but didn't wake.

_He'd close his eyes for just a few minutes, _he thought It had been a long day after all. Just a few minutes to appreciate the peace while he was waiting for the social worker to arrive and then he'd be able to get on with the case.

"H-hmm"

Horatio awoke with a start at the sound of someone quietly clearing their throat.

_Oh God,_ he thought, _what time is it? Where am I?_ Gradually his memory filtered back. He looked up to find a middle-aged woman sitting in his chair. As he attempted to move to greet the stranger he was aware of a pressure on his arm. He looked down to find Sharon curled up at his side, her head leaning against him. He motioned to the woman in his chair, pointing to the door and silently mouthing the words 'we'll talk outside'. He slowly raised himself out of his seat, lowering Sharon's head onto a cushion as he did so.

Outside the woman from his office extended her hand, a smile on her face.

"Lieutenant Caine I presume, I'm Amelia Masters, Child Services."

He took her hand and shook it.

"Miss Masters, thank-you for coming, especially so late."

"Not a problem Lieutenant. I'm always available if a child is in need of help."

"An honourable sentiment, Ma'am."

"I have to admit it's quite a surprise to find my subject so, um, _comfortable_ around law-enforcement." She said with the hint of a smile on her face.

Horatio blushed slightly, realising that he needed to explain the situation. He indicated towards a bench, and started to relate his history with Sharon and her family to the social worker as they sat down.

"And Sharon called you tonight, to come and find her?" She asked as he finished his story.

"Yes ma'am. I haven't had a chance to tell her about her parents yet, but I have a feeling she already knows they're dead. You may have seen the dried blood on her clothes. That's one reason I need you here, she's got evidence on her, and I need to process her, but she needs to have an advocate present, and as you are probably aware the only family I know of are probably on their way to our morgue as we speak, so I need you to act as her guardian."

"That shouldn't be a problem Lieutenant."

"_Horatio!"_

The cry came from inside his office. He stood quickly and ran to the door, finding a frightened Sharon breathing heavily and visibly shaking. She had obviously just woken up, and had panicked when she found him gone. Sharon ran over to Horatio as he re-entered the office, and threw her arms around his waist, resting her head on his chest. He placed a protective hand on top of her head. When he felt her breathing calm down he pulled her away.

"Sharon, this is Miss Masters. She's a social worker, and she's going to stay with you for a while. Ok?"

"But, but, I want you to stay with me."

"Sharon honey, I've got to work, and you can't come with me while I do that, it might be dangerous for you. So this lady is going to look after you."

Reluctantly Sharon nodded her head.

"Horatio, my parents? They're dead aren't they?"

He closed his eyes and nodded his head

"I'm sorry sweetheart."

He was surprised when she didn't start to cry, but just shrugged a little, and sat back down on the couch.

"Sharon, what happened before you called me tonight?"

She took a breath before she spoke, pausing to get her thoughts into order.

"I had a project to do for school. The life-cycle of blow-flies. Boring huh?"

"Oh I think it's pretty interesting." Horatio said and smiled, thinking about how many cases had been furthered, or solved using etymological knowledge.

Sharon threw him a look that just said _yeah right_, and continued.

"I got put into a pair with a girl called Anna. Her mom's an artist so she's got a big studio that we could work in, so I went over there after school. Anyway, we kinda didn't realise how long we'd spent on the project, and it got late. She only lives a few streets away, so I walked home."

Amelia interrupted.

"Wouldn't your parents have been worried when you didn't come home?"

"Um, no. Not really." She shot a quick glance at Horatio before looking back to Amelia, "I don't think anyone's explained to you, I, erm, spent quite a bit of time out of the house. It was um, safer that way I guess." She looked at Horatio for encouragement. His smile was enough to prompt her to continue with her account. "Like I was saying, when I got home there weren't any lights on in the house, I thought they'd gone out somewhere, a bar maybe."

_Or you thought they'd gone to the emergency room to get your mom some medical help I bet._ Horatio thought.

"But when I went into the lounge I saw…" She left the sentence hanging, her eyes wide with horror, as in her mind she relived the scene. "I don't really remember what happened then, but I remember running, I just ran for blocks and blocks, until I felt like I couldn't run any more, and then I didn't know what to do, so I called you." She looked up at Horatio with her wide brown eyes.

"How did you get blood on your clothes?" He asked.

"I um, I think I tried to shake my mom, to get her to wake up. I always managed to wake her up before, when dad had…y'know. But I couldn't make her wake up." Her voice was starting to crack as she relived the moment in her head.

"Ok, Sharon honey, it's ok. We're going to get you some clean clothes and I'll get one of the female officers to come and check you over and take your dirty clothes away."

"You mean you're gonna process my clothes, like I'm a suspect. You think I did this?"

"No." His answer was firm. "I don't think you did this, but your clothes have evidence on them. You might've picked up something from the crime scene that the killer left behind, something that might help us to catch him. While I get a female officer up here I want you to wait with Miss Masters, Ok?"

"Ok."

As he left the office Horatio pulled his cellphone from his jacket and hit redial on Calleigh's number.

"Duquesne."

"Calleigh, how's the scene going?"

"Great Horatio, we're nearly done here. Eric's just taking the last few crime scene photos, and me and Ryan are just bagging and tagging the last of the trace. Alexx left well over an hour ago with our vics, she should have started her autopsy by now."

"Ok, thanks Calleigh, I'll meet you in the layout room when you get back."

"Sure thing."

He ended the call, and headed down to the autopsy suite, the domain of Alexx Woods, Miami-Dade's finest Medical Examiner.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Horatio's skin prickled as he entered the chilled atmosphere of the morgue. Even his shirt and jacket provided no barrier to the cold air that danced around the back of his neck, causing the hairs to stand on end. He often wondered how Alexx managed to work in this temperature all day wearing just the M.E.'s standard uniform of short sleeved medical scrubs, _she must've been a penguin in a past life_ he thought, chuckling to himself.

"What's got you smirking to yourself, huh?" A voice directly by his ear asked. And Alexx walked away with a huge grim on her face as Horatio jumped so severely that she would swear his feet actually left the ground.

"Alexx! You nearly had another dead body to deal with. You gotta stop sneaking up on people, or someone's gonna have a heart attack."

"Hey it's my morgue, and I'll sneak up on whoever I want to." She replied with a smile. "Besides, I have more than enough dead bodies in here already thank-you very much." She took a quick glance over her shoulder to where several fresh corpses were stored on gurneys covered with the standard blue sheets stamped with the requisite statement 'property of MDPD Medical Examiners Office', presumably waiting for Alexx to begin her autopsies.

It was a sight that often made Horatio cringe ever so slightly. Not the sight of dead bodies, he'd learned to deal with that a long time ago, but there was something about the phrase 'property of MDPD' stamped on the sheets that were used to cover the human remains in the morgue, preserving their dignity. Of course the sheets were marked as such to make sure they couldn't be stolen from laundries or storage cupboards, but at the same time there was the macabre alternative analysis, that the police department was claiming ownership over what had once been a human being, but was now simply an empty shell.

But I'm guessing you didn't come down here for the banter, right?" Alexx continued, seeing that Horatio's mind was starting to drift. "So down to business, I presume you're here to see the victims that I collected earlier right?"

"Yep."

"Well, I haven't had time to perform full autopsies yet, but I have conducted initial assessments, and I removed these from your victims." Alexx handed Horatio three evidence containers each holding a single bullet. "It appears both died from gunshot wounds. The female was shot at close range, projectile apparently punctured the aorta, she would've bled out in seconds. Male victim on the other hand took two shots directly to the back of his head, stellate wound indicates point blank range. I've seen enough gang killings to know that this man wasn't just killed; he was executed Horatio."

"You get a TOD?"

"You ever know me not to come up with the goods? Sure I got a Time of death for you. Liver temperature indicated that the male vic died about 3 hours before you found him, but get this, the female vic had already been dead for about an hour when he was shot."

"That's a pretty big gap between deaths."

"Yep. And there's something else." Alexx drew back the sheet that had been covering the body that lay on the gurney behind her, revealing the lifeless form of Jack Heith. "There was some high velocity blood spatter on the male's right arm, I took a sample and sent it up for Valera to have a look at in DNA."

"So if that blood comes back as Linda's we can safely say that either Jack shot his wife, or he was standing right next to the person that did." He motioned towards the bullets that Alexx had extracted from the bodies, "I guess I'd better get these up for Calleigh to have a look at."

"Ok Horatio. If I find anything else I'll let you know."

"Thanks Alexx." He called back over his shoulder as he turned to leave the morgue and head back up to the warmer conditions of the lab.


	5. Chapter 4

As soon as he pushed through the doors, and left the autopsy suite he could feel the warmth rushing back into his body. That was the only problem with visiting autopsy, it made the already balmy Florida weather seem even hotter in comparison to the frosty temperatures maintained in Alexx's domain.

Calleigh, Ryan and Eric were already waiting in the layout room when Horatio appeared from autopsy.

"Listen, thanks for giving up your sleep on this one guys. I appreciate it."

"No problem H." Eric reassured his boss. And Horatio nodded his thanks in response.

"So what've we got then?"

Horatio's standard question was the starting point for most case discussions, prompting the CSIs to relate any important evidence they had recovered during their investigation before they could talk over the finer points, as well as any theories they might have.

It was Eric that started the ball rolling.

"There was no sign of forced entry to the property, and nothing seems to be missing. TV, DVD player and computer were still there, and there was some jewellery upstairs, so I guess we can pretty much rule robbery out as a motive."

"I lifted quite a few prints, so far the ones I've managed to scan and search through the database have mostly come back to our victims, although there's a few that don't match either of them. I'll need to get some comparison prints from Sharon to eliminate her prints from the lifts." Ryan chipped in his own information after Eric had finished with his opening assessment.

"And I get the juicy evidence." Calleigh smirked. "The gun found in Jack Heith's hand was a .480 Linebaugh revolver."

"That's a serious piece of hardware right?" Horatio asked.

"Well, not as much as you might think. The gun looks like a beast, but it has less power behind it than a lot of its competitors. It fell out of favour with gun buffs pretty fast, but it's still popular with some groups, especially the image conscious crowd. Y'know; men who feel the need to overcompensate for other deficiencies." She raised her eyebrows, conveying her message perfectly.

Horatio placed the bullets that Alexx had given him on the light-table, and watched Calleigh's face light up as if she were receiving a birthday present.

"From Alexx."

"Ooh goody."

There was a smothered chuckle from Eric, and Calleigh threw him an evil look.

"Hey, I can't help it if I get a bit excited over ballistics. Besides I don't laugh at you when you go all doe-eyed over some super-charged sports car, or tyre tracks."

"Ok, ok. Sorry. I bow to your vast knowledge and superior intellect." He held his hands up in mock surrender.

"And don't you forget it. Can I have the bit about the superior intellect in writing please?"

"Not a chance."

"Hmph."

Horatio rolled his eyes, he took a look over at Ryan, who had leant back on a bench that was fixed to the outer edge of the room, and had crossed his arms settling in for what he clearly assumed was going to be one of Eric and Calleigh's playful arguments, while Horatio appreciated the need to keep the atmosphere as light as possible, he needed to move the case along quickly. He cleared his throat.

"Guys? The evidence?"

There was a muttered round of apologies as Calleigh went back to studying the bullets.

"Well these two are .22s, small calibre." She indicated the bullets that had been pulled from Jack Heith's skull. "But this one," she said holding the bullet up close to her face, "is a .480 Ruger, and it's consistent with the Linebaugh revolver found in the male vic's hand. I'll run a comparison and see if they're a pair. And while I'm at it I'll run the .22 rifling through IBIS, see if anything pops up."

IBIS, the acronym for the Integrated Ballistics Identification System, was a growing database used by ballistics experts, who would capture images of fired bullet rifling characteristics and firing pin impressions on spent casings, and use computer software to search for similar characteristics in other cases. If a killer used the same firearm to kill all their victims, then they could be linked to each individual crime through the IBIS program, providing, of course, that the investigators had recorded images of bullets involved in their investigations on the system.

Ryan opened up the laptop that was sitting in front of him on the table, clicking a few keys until he found the file he was looking for and turned it towards Horatio.

"We took a look at the blood pattern that surrounded the husband, to try and ascertain a point of origin."

The series of digital images that Ryan had pulled from the computer's hard-drive showed an overall view of the crime scene, and then close-ups of Heith's body lying next to what had been a crisp white wall. Small circles drawn onto the wall's surface surrounded each individual blood droplet, allowing the pattern of spatter to become obvious.

"The blood spatter is low, seems to be confined to the bottom third of the wall."

"Which suggests that he was either sitting or kneeling on the floor when he was shot." Horatio finished Ryan's sentence for him, and the young CSI nodded in agreement.

"From the position the body ended up in, I'd say he was kneeling."

"Execution style." Horatio closed his eyes and allowed himself to picture the scene.

Linda Heith sat, already dead in the chair, her eyes glassy and clouded, staring out into eternity. On the other side of the room Jack Heith's killer forces him to kneel down before raising the cold steel barrel to the back of Heith's head, in a last desperate attempt to save his life Heith reaches for the gun concealed in his belt, but he's too late, pulling the trigger twice in quick succession the killer deposits two .22 calibre slugs in his head. Heith falls forward, instantly dead as the projectiles rattle around inside his skull, turning his brain to mush.

He brought himself out of his thoughts to see the other CSIs waiting for his comments or questions.

"Ok guys, nice work. You all good to run with the evidence from the scene?"

There were murmured sentiments of _yes_ from all the CSIs as they all rose, gathered any evidence they had bought with them and turned towards the doors.

"I'm on my cell if you need me." Horatio called after their retreating backs.


	6. Chapter 5

Seeing as how I've got a day off work, and that this chapter is so short I might give in to the temptation and post two chapters today.

Yep, I've decided, I'll come back and post chapter 6 later on today.

_---------------------------------_

When Horatio returned to his office he had to stifle the laugh that threatened to surface as he looked through the glass door and saw a very disgruntled Sharon sitting with her arms crossed and a look of indignation creasing her young face. The reason for her current mood was fairly obvious; she was dressed in an oversized orange jumpsuit, the kind worn by prisoners. He guessed that the officer who had processed Sharon's clothes hadn't been able to find any other garments for Sharon to change into, and so had settled for the jumpsuit, which unfortunately was probably big enough to clothe Sharon three times over. When she saw Horatio standing on the other side of the door Sharon's expression changed instantly, her eyebrows un-creasing from the frown that had seemed so set on her face, and Horatio saw a hopeful inquisitiveness enter her eyes.

"Hey, I hear that orange is this season's colour." He quipped as he entered the room.

Sharon threw him a look that said _don't even start_, and took a breath ready to start questioning him.

"Before you say anything Sharon, I can't tell you anything about the investigation. You're a witness, and anything I say could affect your judgement if you're called to give testimony about the scene."

Before she could answer him back the social worker spoke, clearly seeing that the wisest course of action at this point was to change the subject.

"Lieutenant Caine, now Sharon has given you the answers to your questions and has been processed for any evidence I'd like to take her to a safe house. Although I don't think there is any real risk to her personal safety at this point I'd like to be cautious. I've already called some people to set the wheels in motion, and we've got a house that will be ready for her in the next 15 minutes or so."

"I don't have a problem with that. I'll organise a plain clothes police escort for you."

"Thank-you. That would be appreciated."

"But Horatio, I want to stay here with you." Sharon's eyes had widened when she had heard Amelia's suggestion of a safe-house.

Horatio knelt down in front of where she sat, bringing his eye level pretty much in line with hers.

"Sharon, honey, I need you to go with Miss Masters to the safe-house she's organised. I need to work on solving this case, and I can't do that if I'm worried about your safety. Do you understand?"

"I guess so."

"Ok then. I'll come by and see you when you're settled in. Come here and give me a hug."

He put his arms around her shoulders and she placed her hands around his waist, squeezing him tightly. As he pulled away he could see that Sharon's eyes were sparkling with tears that she was making a valiant effort to fight back. He knew that she was putting on a brave face, not wanting anyone, least of all him, to see the pain that was pulsing inside her. He hated to leave her like this, but there was a killer walking free on the streets of Miami, and that had to be his primary concern right now. _Besides_, he thought to himself, _maybe spending some time with Amelia would help her to open up and deal with her grief_.

A uniformed officer arrived outside the door to the office to guide Sharon and the social worker down to the waiting car. Horatio stood, hands on hips as he watched Amelia put her hands on Sharon's shoulders and guide her through the doors and down the short flight of stairs and away through the lab. Sharon looked back once, just before she lost sight of the office, catching a glimpse of Horatio still standing there watching her walk away. _Please God look after him_, she thought, a silent prayer offered up for a man who had become more of a father to her than anyone she had ever known. And, unknown to her Horatio offered up a similar prayer for the young girl who had become more like a daughter than he ever thought could be possible.


	7. Chapter 6

As one of the few resident ballistics experts working for the Miami-Dade crime lab Calleigh could often be processing firearms evidence from up to twenty open cases at any one time. Today she had a somewhat lighter caseload, other than Horatio's double homicide case she only had a few spent rounds to document and compare from a drug-store shooting that had left a 27 year old with a serious wound to his shoulder.

A sharp beep brought Calleigh's attention from the comparison microscope she had been peering down back to the wall-mounted plasma screen that currently displayed the search screen from the IBIS database. Another beep and the image of her questioned bullet striations was joined by another set of rifling marks, at the top of the screen the words 'Positive Match' blinked in green, and her face lit up. She clicked the mouse buttons a few times, dragging the pre-existing IBIS entry over the top of her own sample and smiled as she saw that the markings matched perfectly. A few more mouse clicks pulled up the case file information along with a brief précis of the case and the contact details of the ballistics expert who had entered the bullet into the system.

Calleigh scribbled down a few notes onto a notepad and then pulled her cellphone out of her jacket, punching in a number with a New York area code.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Horatio!"

Horatio spun around to find Calleigh striding towards him down the corridor, her white lab coat streaming out in her wake and her heels producing a clicking that echoed off the walls.

"Calleigh, what's up?"

"I just finished running a few tests on the bullets. First of all the comparison between the bullet that killed Linda Heith and the gun found in her husband's hand." She opened one of the files that she was holding and passed a photograph comparing rifling grooves on the bullet pulled from Linda to her test fire from the Linebaugh revolver. "They're a match. The rifling marks were replicated exactly on the test-fired round. There was also high-velocity spatter on the muzzle, I sent a sample to DNA, results come back to Linda Heith."

"So it's confirmed, Jack killed his wife.

"That's what the evidence is saying." Calleigh nodded.

"I have a feeling that there's more news."

"Oh yeah, I saved the best for last. I ran the .22s through IBIS…"

"And you got a hit?"

"Hey, don't steal my thunder here."

"Sorry." Horatio grinned. The excitement that was surrounding Calleigh was obvious, like her own ballistic fuelled aura.

"So anyway, yep I got a hit through the IBIS database. The gun that was used to kill Jack Heith was also used in the unsolved murder of a businessman about a year ago in New York. The scene showed a couple of similarities to ours. The vic, a guy named…" Calleigh glanced down at her notebook while she found the name, "…Rick Quinn, was killed execution style. Took a bullet to the back of the head from point blank range. I just got off the phone from talking to the ballistics guy up there who gave me a run-trough of the vague details of the case."

"Did they have any suspects?"

There was a smug look that settled itself on Calleigh's features.

"Oh yeah. The New York team were pretty sure that the killer was a guy called Silvio Costa, his friends call him by his nickname, 'Lucky', but they just couldn't pin it on him. He's a big friend of the Langella family."

"Langella as in Frankie Langella?"

"One and the same, H."

"So we're dealing with a guy with strong connections to the Mafia, and Mob families have always been pretty good at getting their friends off on criminal cases." He paused, a shadow passed over his eyes as he pulled details from a life he had long since pushed out of his mind. "So it looks like Frankie hired himself a new cleanup guy, someone to deal with the unfortunate bodies that seem to appear whenever Frankie's around."

"You know him H?"

"When I was a beat cop up in New York I ran into the Langella family once or twice. Hard to avoid running into Mafia families when you're a New York cop. Frankie was only a kid then so I never had reason to get to know him, but from what I hear he's made his old man proud and gone into the family business. Silvio Costa and I on the other hand go way back. I used to bust him every couple of months for one crime or another, but his fancy lawyer always seemed to manage to make the charge just go away." There was an angry tone to his voice, and Horatio was quiet for a moment before he continued "But why would a mafia hit man come all the way down from New York to kill our vic?"

"Well that's the interesting thing, because according to the guy in the NYPD lab Lucky's been down here in Miami for about four months. Apparently things got a bit too hot for him up there and Frankie's letting him use his condo down here until things cool off a bit, the NYPD asked our department to have a couple of our officers keeping an eye on him while he's taking a vacation here."

"Great work Calleigh. I guess I need to go and have a talk with Mr Costa before he gets homesick and heads back up north."

At that moment Horatio's phone started to ring, he looked at the caller display and flipped open the cover.

"Mr Wolfe, what have you got for me?"

"Hey H, I just finished running the prints we lifted from the crime scene. Mostly just prints from the family, but there are a couple from another individual. I ran the unknown prints through AFIS and got a match."

"Silvio Costa." Horatio muttered

Ryan was a little taken aback, glancing quickly over his shoulder to check that Horatio wasn't standing behind him reading the paper that he was holding in his hand.

"Um yeah…H, how'd you…?"

Horatio smiled, sensing the young CSI's confusion coming down the phone line.

"Call it a sixth sense Mr Wolfe."

_I hate it when he does that_, Ryan thought.

Horatio shut the phone, ending the connection and strode out of the lab, each step full of purpose.


	8. Chapter 7

_Thanks for continuing to read…I hope you're enjoying it so far._

_+ thanks for the reviews!!!_

------------------------------------

Horatio took a second to regard the man sitting inside the interview room from where he stood leaning on a desk at the other side of the bull-pen that housed the desks of the MDPD Detectives, a desk that coincidently used to belong to his sister-in-law, Yelina. Now it had been allocated to the new detective that had taken her place since she had resigned. The pictures of Ray Junior and the soccer practice timetables that used to grace the personal space of the tiny cubicle were gone, replaced with photographs of an unknown family.

Silvio Costa lounged in the seat like he owned the place, legs stretched out in front of him, feet on the table. Costa was around the same age as Horatio, maybe a couple of years younger, but time had not been as kind to the native New Yorker, the grey streaks in his hair were spreading from his temples, threatening to become his dominant hair colour. The lines around his eyes were well defined, and his skin was white, with no hint of tan, _a legacy of conducting most of his business in the moonlight_ Horatio thought.

"Mr Costa." Horatio greeted the man as he entered. His voice was deep, almost descending to a growl. He stood to Costa's side his gaze focussed on the subject's feet, then his eyes flicked up to meet Costa's, and held them. Costa stared back defiantly for a few seconds before breaking the staring contest and slowly removing his feet from the table.

"Well, what'cha know? Hey Blue how're ya doin? Long time no see."

Horatio smirked; it was a long time since he'd been called 'Blue'. It was a habit of most criminals in New York to call all cops by that name, because of the colour of their uniforms. It was a habit that didn't extend to Miami, as the police in Dade County wore brown uniforms. Now Horatio was more often called 'Red', a nod from the suspects he interviewed to the vibrant colour of his hair. _Different colour, same sentiment,_ he had thought when he first moved down from New York.

Then there was Costa's thick New York drawl, an unmistakable speech pattern that Horatio had missed hearing when he'd first joined the force here in Miami. Now, spoken by Silvio it was a reminder of everything he'd disliked about the city. Silvio's accent went way beyond the normal New Yorker's accent, it was almost as if he was replicating speech patterns he'd lifted straight out of a mafia movie.

"Yes Silvio, but it seems that old habits die hard huh?"

"Hey," Costa lifted his shoulders in a shrug, "I don't got no idea what you're talkin' 'bout." He shifted in his seat, "Besides, ya gone all native on me now Blue? Where's your accent gone? Ya wouldn't guess you'd ever lived up in the big smoke to hear ya talk now."

"Silvio, drop the chatter. I have a few questions that I want you to answer."

"Just like old times Blue, y'know ya should get back up to the city sometime, been real boring since ya left. The guys they put on your beat after ya ran away down here, Hell, they just couldn't hack it." Costa leant forward and whispered. "Took all the fun outta breaking the law, got too easy, y'know?"

Horatio's face remained impassive, he didn't want Costa to have the satisfaction of getting a reaction out of him for his snide remark, _'after you ran away down here'. _But despite his calm outer shell, internally Horatio's anger spiked.

"Mr Costa, why were you in Jack Heith's home yesterday?"

"Whoa there Blue, why ya gone all formal on me? Do I need to get a lawyer in here?"

"I don't know Silvio, do you?" Horatio replied, a warning smile on his face.

Costa smirked, and settled further down into his seat, regarding the Miami-Dade Lieutenant with a wary eye. As he replied he smiled that infuriatingly confident grin.

"Nah, I don't guess I do. I don't know this Heith guy. You know me Blue, I don't mix with new people all that easy, kinda shy y'know."

"Well you see Silvio, that's going to be a problem for you because we just matched your fingerprint to one that we lifted from a Jack Heith's home. So you want to try again?"

"Well there was this one guy I got talkin' to at a bar a few days ago, wanted to show me some car he was doin' up."

"Convenient Silvio."

"Yeah, I guess it is. Well, y'know Blue, s'been fun. Hate to cut this reunion short but I gotta fly. We oughta go out for a beer sometime, catch up on old times."

"Don't go far Silvio."

Horatio watched as Silvio Costa walked out of the interview room, a distinct swagger in his step. Once out of the room Costa turned and gave Horatio a wave, a grin plastered on his smug face. Horatio felt a tug on his jacket sleeve, and before he moved his gaze away from Silvio's face he could've sworn he saw the grin falter for just a second. He looked down to see who wanted him, and was surprised to see Sharon standing next to him. She was looking in the same direction as Horatio's stare had just been focused, a look of recognition and fear swept over her features.

"Sharon, what's wrong?"

"Th…that man. I know him. He came to our home about a week ago. He was shouting, I think he's called Lucky; dad owed him money."

Suddenly something dawned on Horatio.

"Hang on, how come you're here Sharon? You should be at the safe house that Child Services has sorted out."

"Don't shout at me Horatio, but I didn't want to stay there. I was bored, and I want to help you solve this case."

"Sharon, do you realise how dangerous what you've done is? You've been placed in a safe house for a reason. You've just put your own life at risk and probably caused a lot of people to worry."

Sharon's lip began to quiver. The emotions that boiled within were close to the surface, and Horatio's heart melted to see her so upset.

"I…I'm s…sorry Horatio. I d…didn't mean to."

"It's ok sweetheart." He put a comforting arm around her shoulders. "Listen, go sit in my office for a minute I have to go tell the team some things, and then I'll drive you back to the safe house. Perhaps we could order take-out how about that?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

It took him about thirty minutes to relate what had gone on in his interview with Costa to the rest of the team, and to put a quick phone call through to Amelia Masters to let her know where her errant charge had gotten to. Amelia sounded incredibly relieved to hear that the young girl was safe. When he began to mount the short set of stairs up to his office he saw that Sharon was ready and waiting at the office door, she was bouncing on the balls of her feet, and had an eager look on her face which developed into a wide grin when she saw Horatio approaching.

A few minutes later they were walking out the front doors of the MDPD building and heading towards Horatio's Hummer. A low throbbing noise caught his attention and he raised his head in time to see a black SUV accelerate rapidly, wheels spinning at first before the outer rubber layer caught up with the speed of the tyre and the vehicle shot forward. He saw the gun as the SUV closed the distance between them in a split second.

"Sharon! Down!" He yelled, running towards her and pulling her down to the ground using his own body as a shield but was a fraction of a second too late as the gunshot rang out and he felt the wave of displaced air from the bullet's path. He leapt to his feet, gun drawn. Levelling the weapon he fired off several rounds, the first bounced off the bodywork of the SUV with a clang and a small flash. The second bullet however shattered the glass in the back window, and the third took out the tail-light. The fourth bullet he sent after the retreating car, didn't cause a visible reaction, but Horatio thought he saw the figure in the drivers seat flinch, and heard him shout, possibly as a bullet struck him.

As he looked down at the ground he could see blood on the floor.

Sharon yelled in pain and grasped her left shoulder. From what Horatio could see it was just a graze to the shoulder, the bullet having mostly missed its target. Horatio snatched his cellphone out of his jacket and speed-dialed the morgue number.

"Alexx, I need you outside the main entrance. Sharon's been shot. I need medical personnel here now!"

He flipped the phone closed again and tried to calm down the near hysterical Sharon. By the time Alexx came running out of the main entrance, medical kit in-hand about half a minute later he had managed to calm Sharon down and had eased the fabric of her t-shirt away from the wound.

While Alexx cleaned and dressed Sharon's wound, which she assured him was no more than a surface graze, Horatio had sent marked patrol cars out to look for the SUV. He'd managed to make a mental note of the licence plate as he'd been firing at the vehicle. Eric had been given the job of running down the legal owners of the SUV and had found that it had been reported stolen barely half an hour ago. The owners, a young couple, had been carjacked at gunpoint at an intersection a few blocks away from the lab. Bolos had been issued to every police unit in the city for the vehicle. And Horatio was confident that they would find it.


	9. Chapter 8

_Just a short chapter for today's instalment._

-------------------------------------------

"Horatio? I've just contacted the onstar control room and they've activated the tracking system on the stolen SUV. We're tracing it now. I'll let you know what we find."

"Thanks Calleigh. Be safe."

"I always am."

Calleigh smiled as she snapped her phone shut. She pressed her foot down harder on the accelerator, and Miami started to fly by even faster. Ryan sat next to her in the passenger seat, he was holding a handheld tracker which indicated the current position of the SUV.

"It's still moving North. Take a right here Cal."

Calleigh followed his instructions, barely slowing down as she pulled the Hummer into a tight right-hand turn.

"Wait a second, the signal's stationary. They've stopped. Take the next left."

It took them about four minutes to find the location of the SUV. Before they reached their destination Calleigh had radioed in the position to the control room, and by the time they pulled the Hummer to a stop a few metres away from the stolen vehicle they were being followed by around six patrol cars. Calleigh and Ryan slid down from the Hummer's high seats and drew their weapons, initially using the open doors of the vehicle as a shield in case their exit from the vehicle was greeted by gunfire from the stolen car's occupants. Seconds passed and there was no response. Slowly they spread out, Calleigh circling towards the driver's side and Ryan flanking the passenger side.

Calleigh could see a figure slumped in the drivers seat.

"MDPD, raise your hands." She instructed.

There was no response, and as she drew closer she could see the gunshot wound in the middle of his forehead.

"Ryan, d.b. in the driver's seat. Front's clear."

Ryan nodded, and stepped up to the back of the SUV, aiming his gun towards the back seat.

"Back's clear too."

Calleigh holstered her weapon, and gave the uniformed cops that surrounded him a thumbs-up, and saw them follow her lead, each man also slipping his gun into a hip-holster.

"Ok then, lets get to work." Calleigh said as she snapped on a pair of latex gloves.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Alexx, what have you got for me?"

"Horatio, nice timing. I just finished the post on the dead guy Ryan and Calleigh found in the SUV. Eric tells me that his prints identify him as José Maceo, a small time criminal. He's got a record for B and E and a couple of assaults."

"Looks like José was moving up in the crime world. He just graduated to accomplice in an attempted murder."

"Yeah, well payback's a bitch. So anyway, our guy was in pretty good shape. Apart from a bit of a cocaine habit and the two bullets I pulled out of him. One bullet hit his scapula, that one's a .9mm." Alexx held up the .9mm bullet as she spoke.

"I guess I caused the guy some pain. That's police issue ammo, I fired at the SUV after the drive-by. When we run it I'd bet that bullet's going to come back as a match to my weapon." Horatio explained.

"Well this one definitely wasn't yours. This was the hardware that killed him, had to dig this out of his skull." She held up the other bullet she had extracted at the autopsy. "Smaller calibre, I'll have to get it up to Calleigh to find out exactly what calibre it is."

Horatio took the bullet from her and studied it for a moment.

"Looks like a .22, just like the bullet that killed Jack Heith. Thanks Alexx, I'll get these up to Calleigh."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Calleigh, I've got a present for you from Alexx."

"Ooh goody, gimme."

Horatio laughed at the eagerness of the young, blonde CSI at the prospect of processing ballistics evidence.

"Actually, I've got something for you too." She handed over a folder. Opening the cover Horatio found himself looking at a fingerprint match printed from the AFIS system. "The fingerprints that Ryan lifted from the dashboard of the SUV were a match to Silvio Costa. I think that's enough for a search warrant don't you?"

"I'll get a judge to sign off on a warrant no problem with this evidence. Nice work Calleigh, let me know what you find?"

"Sure thing H."

As he pushed open the door to the lab on his way out he flipped open his phone.

"Judge Williamson? Horatio Caine… Have you got five minutes to sign off on a search warrant?…Of course I've got the evidence to back it up, would I be calling if I didn't?" A quick chuckle, "Thank-you Judge, I'll be there in a few minutes."


	10. Chapter 9

The hot rays of the Miami sun streamed down as Horatio got out of the Hummer. His cell phone started to ring from somewhere in the depths of his jacket pocket, eventually managing to locate the ringing device he fished it out of his pocket and answered it.

"Calleigh, you got some good news for me?"

"You bet I have H. Just finished the comparison, bullet that killed our vic, José Maceo; the guy from the stolen SUV, was fired from the same gun that was used to kill Jack Heith. It was also a match to the round that I dug out of the wall of MDPD after they took a shot at Sharon."

"Thank-you Calleigh, hopefully we'll soon have a gun for you to get a test-fire from."

A beep interrupted their conversation.

"Calleigh, I've got a call waiting. I'll catch you later."

"Sure thing, H."

Horatio dropped the handset from his ear and looked at the display. Punching a couple of buttons he raised the phone back to his ear.

"Mr Wolfe, what's happening?"

"I just got a report from the guys who have been taking a look at the financial records from Linda and Jack Heith. Apparently a fairly large sum of money was deposited in one of Linda's accounts just 4 days ago. It looks like she won some cash on the lottery."

Horatio considered this information for a few seconds.

"Mr Wolfe, that is very interesting. I think you just found the motive for Jack Heith to kill his wife."

Although Ryan didn't say anything in response Horatio could imagine the look of pride that had undoubtedly washed over Ryan's face.

"Nice work, we'll talk this over later."

"Later H."

Horatio replaced the phone in his pocket and continued his walk to the front door of Frankie Langella's Miami mansion, Silvio Costa's temporary residence.

"MDPD. Mr Costa, open the door." Horatio called out clearly as he hammered on the door.

"Yo Blue. Come on round the back." Came a yelled response.

As Horatio rounded the corner of the house he unclipped the strap on his weapon, but didn't remove the gun. Around the back of the building he found Costa lounging on a recliner beside the bright turquoise waters of a huge swimming pool sipping from a large frosted glass of beer.

"Frankie's got a nice place here huh Blue? You want I should get you a drink?"

"No thank-you Silvio."

"So what'd I do that's so special it requires the big guy, top gun, Lieutenant Horatio Caine himself to visit?" Silvio's words dripped with sarcasm as he spoke, which Horatio chose to ignore.

"Murder always qualifies for special attention Silvio."

"Murder? You trippin' on me Blue? I don't got nothin' to do with no murder. I don't know what you're talkin' 'bout."

Horatio handed him the search warrant.

"Well Silvio, why don't you have a read through this, it might clear a few things up."

"Horatio." Eric's voice came from the glass doors that led into the house, as Horatio looked up he saw the CSI emerge from behind the sheer white fabric that acted as a screen between the interior of the house and the pool area. Eric held a gun in each of his latex gloved hands.

Horatio glanced down at the seated form of Silvio Costa, who shrugged and took another drink from his beer. Horatio walked around the pool to where Eric stood.

"They're both .22s H. This one's intact," he lifted the gun in his left hand to indicate which weapon he was talking about, "but check this out." Eric removed the top casing of the firearm he was holding in his right hand efficiently, revealing a space where the barrel should be. "Can't find the barrel inside the house anywhere."

"Interesting." Horatio pulled on his own latex gloves, took the gun from Eric and walked back around the pool to Costa.

"Silvio, where's the barrel to this gun?"

"That gun? I guess I must've lost it somewhere." A smirk appeared on Costa's face as he spoke.

"That was careless Silvio." There was a short pause before he continued "But don't worry, we'll help you find it." There was the essence of a threat that was conveyed clearly as he spoke that divulged his contempt for a criminal who thought that he could outsmart Horatio's team with such a simple solution.

The smirk on Costa's face died as Horatio spoke.

"Take a look at that Eric."

Back inside the house, Horatio had started to help the other CSI search for the missing gun component. He was currently crouched down, his weight resting on the balls of his feet; looking down at a pair of shoes that had been hastily stuffed inside a cupboard in the hallway. Horatio picked up one of the shoes and inspected the soles.

"Costa didn't have much time between the drive-by and our house-call. So it's my guess that he hasn't had a chance to hide the barrel anywhere other than in this property somewhere.

"Unless he threw it out of the car window as they drove away from the scene." Eric's face had fallen since his initial victory from finding the weapons, realising that if Costa had dumped the gun somewhere in Miami, the chances of recovering it were pretty much non-existent.

Horatio remained in his crouched position next to the closet, his forearms resting on his thighs, staring hard at the pair of shoes, thinking hard.

"But somehow, I don't think he'd do that. Silvio's too cocky for that. He'd want any crimes he commits in the future to be linked to him, but for law enforcement not to be able to prove he did it."

"He likes thinking he can outsmart the forensics."

"Mm hmm, well Eric, he's not going to outsmart us. The dirt on the bottom of these shoes is telling me that the barrel is buried in the backyard somewhere."

"Nice catch H, I'll get Ryan to come out with a metal detector.

The beeps got more frequent and higher pitched as Ryan swept the detector back and forth over the patch of dirt.

"I got something here." He called out to the rest of the team.

His reaction wasn't exactly the most enthusiastic. The first time the detector had signalled there was something underneath the soil his adrenaline level had spiked and he'd become so excited it was like watching a little kid opening his gifts on Christmas morning. That particular foray had produced nothing more than a bottle top. Not to be disheartened Ryan had even got excited the second and third times the detector had started screaming a result, more bottle caps. This was now the ninth time he'd got some sort of metallic alert from the device in his hands, and all he'd got for his efforts so far was a pile of bottle tops, a couple of hair grips and a spanner.

He kneeled down pulled on a pair of gloves and started to scrape at the earth with his hands, eventually revealing the long metallic cylinder of a gun barrel, barely recognisable, caked as it was in a thick layer of mud. Suddenly he was a kid on Christmas morning again, pummelling the air with a fist in triumph. He moved to the side to let Eric take a photograph of the barrel in situ, before Ryan collected it as evidence, placing it carefully into a firearms evidence box.

Horatio stood with his hands on his hips, his head down looking at the floor in front of the reclining form of Silvio Costa, casting a long shadow that covered the New Yorker's expanse of pale white skin.

"Yo Blue, you wanna move out the way? You're blockin' my rays over there."

"Make the most of the sun Silvio, it may be the last time you'll be seeing it." The comment was virtually whispered, a deep bass rumble just loud enough for Costa to make out what Horatio had said.

Horatio raised his head, ensuring that Costa was looking directly at him. Caine knew that Silvio could only just see his eyes through the tinted shades he wore, his blue eyes would be obscured by the reflected image of Costa himself. Horatio often wore his shades when questioning suspects, as it gave him an advantage if the subject couldn't see his eyes in order to gauge his reactions.

"Mr Costa, we found your buried treasure." There was a smirk on his face.

Ryan walked up behind Horatio.

"Yeah, what, you wanted it to grow into a machine gun or something Costa?"

Horatio's smirk strengthened at Wolfe's comment before he continued.

"So you'll be accompanying us down to MDPD." He turned towards one of the officers. "Please read Mr Costa his rights and escort him downtown."


	11. Chapter 10

_Lerrinus – thank-you for your wonderful reviews!!! I'm really glad you like it!_

-------------------------------------------

When Horatio found Calleigh she was staring down the twin lenses of a comparison microscope, finely tuning the focus until it showed the minute details of the lands and grooves of the bullet's rifling marks. She snorted quietly as she got the image in focus.

"That's never a good sound when you're running bullet comparisons." Horatio whispered into her ear as he snuck up behind her.

Calleigh jumped and turned around quickly, smiling when she saw it was Horatio.

"Y'all nearly scared me to death. I just got a test fire from the first of the guns we found from the search of Silvio's residence. No match to the rounds we've got in this case so far, but I've still got to get a test fire from the disassembled .22 you bought me from the search." Calleigh moved over to a bench on the opposite side of the room, and Horatio followed her.

On the table lay the gun frame that Eric had discovered in Silvio Costa's residence when they had served the search warrant, and next to it in a separate evidence bag lay the barrel that Ryan had dug up from the back yard, now gleaming clean without a trace of dirt on it.

"I got Eric to process the parts for prints and trace before I cleaned the barrel. I want a pristine test fire, and I'm not going to get one if the barrel is stuffed full of soil and dirt."

Horatio nodded, and watched as Calleigh expertly disassembled the weapon in question, and then reassembled it, replacing the barrel that Silvio had previously removed and attempted to hide. As soon as she had replaced the slide, clicking it into place Calleigh moved swiftly across the ballistics lab and through the sound-proof doors into the test-firing range. She placed the weapon down on the bench as she put on safety goggles and ear-defenders, and then picked up the gun once again, clicked the magazine into place and disengaged the safety switch. Calleigh pulled the slide back, feeling the small movements of precision-made components as a cartridge was pulled out of the magazine and into the chamber ready for firing. This was what she loved about ballistics work, the beauty of a finely made gun, the exactness and accuracy of the weapon, and the knowledge that in a few short minutes she would be able to categorically state whether this weapon had fired the projectile that had already ended so many lives.

She levelled the firearm and there was a short crack as her finger pulled on the trigger, releasing the firing pin, which hit the bullet's primer and ignited the explosive housed in the cartridge. A flash of light was emitted from the muzzle as residue and super heated gas was expelled from the barrel, pushing the bullet onwards in its spinning path towards its final resting place in the middle of a block of ballistics gelatine. Calleigh expertly absorbed the recoil from the gun, caused by the explosive pressure of the ignition producing a backwards momentum in the firearm as the projectile was forced forwards.

It took her just a minute to extract the .22 slug from the gelatine block. Carrying it back into the main ballistics lab with the pride and joy that a schoolchild might bestow on a prize won for a favoured project. She attached the test-fired projectile under one lens of the comparison microscope. Already attached under the other lens from her previous comparison was the bullet that Alexx had pulled out of Jack Heith during the autopsy. Settling her eyes to the eyepieces Calleigh took her time to study the striations, turning the bullets around and adjusting the focus. Finally her face broke into a wide grin.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner."

"You got a match?"

"I got a match. The bullet fired from Silvio's gun is a perfect match to the bullets in the other cases. Silvio Costa killed Jack Heith and José Maceo and took a shot at Sharon. Plus I think that my contact up in New York is going to be pretty happy that we managed to tie Costa directly to their businessman's murder."

"Thanks Calleigh, and as always, great work."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Horatio sat quietly in his office, his elbows resting on the desk, his fingers locked together supporting his chin as he stared ahead, deep in thought, not really seeing what was actually in front of him.

_Linda had won on the lottery, a substantial sum of money which Jack desperately wanted to get his hands on in order to clear his substantial gambling debt with Frankie Langella. There was a chance though that the stupid bitch might suddenly come to her senses and realise that this money brought her some power, she might even decide she didn't want to be married to a man who had put her in the hospital every Friday night for the past 3 years. He couldn't risk her leaving him and taking the money with her. So he'd waited until she'd fallen asleep in the chair and then he'd fetched his gun out of his truck, stood a couple of paces away and fired a .480 slug right into her heart. _

_Horatio could imagine the look of terror and intense pain that showed on Linda's face as she was woken from a deep sleep for just a second, her eyes opened wide before her heart gave up it's struggle and stopped beating, and she slipped into unconsciousness and finally into the eternal sleep. He could also imagine the cold, detached look on Jack's face, a look that would have been Linda's last sight in this life._

Silvio may even have heard the gunshot as he climbed out of his vehicle parked just outside the Heith's home. He peered through the glass panes in the door and saw Heith moving around inside. He was there to deliver a message from Frankie, a message that wasn't so much designed to be heard by Heith himself, but a message that would stand as a warning to anyone else that thought about crossing his boss.

_Costa found the front door unlocked and let himself in, silently pushing to door closed after him. He watched as Heith walked through to the kitchen. Silvio entered the lounge as soon as Heith had disappeared from view and took a few seconds to inspect the lifeless form of Linda Heith. It was obvious from the fact that he could sense no interest from neighbours that loud bangs, crashes and probably piercing screams were a common occurrence in the Heith household. There was something about the blatant carefree attitude that Heith had obviously adopted that angered Costa. Oh, he would be the first to admit that he was no angel, and that he'd done some pretty horrific things in the past, but there was something about the fact that he could hear Heith preparing himself a meal while the dead body of his wife lay oozing blood in the next room that irritated Costa beyond any rational point. Following Frankie's orders to end this son of a bitch's life was going to be a pleasure. _

_Silvio took his position behind the door and removed his .22 revolver from his jacket pocket, he pulled on the arming pin, hearing the gun click as it prepared itself for firing. When Heith came back into the room he took a quick look at his wife, a smile spreading over his features, a smile that died the second that he felt the cold steel of Silvio's gun pressing against the back of his head._

"_I warned you the other day Jack. You don't pay your dues then Frankie gets really pissed. You knew the deal, and now it's time to pay up. Get down on your knees."_

"_But Lucky, I got the money now. I can pay." Silvio forced Jack down onto the ground even as he was talking, making him kneel with his back towards Silvio. The gun barrel never losing its contact with Heith's head._

"_Y'know Jack, normally I'd just take the money and leave you alone, but you know what Jack? I don't like you. And it's not as if Frankie's gonna miss your payment is he? I hope you made your peace with God Jack, but somehow," He glanced over at Linda, "I doubt it."_

_Jack reached into his belt for the gun he'd stored there after shooting his wife. He removed it and started to swing around to get a shot at Costa, but he was too slow. As soon as he saw the movement Costa fired twice putting two slugs through Jack's skull._

"Son of a bitch." He said with disgust evident in his voice as he hid his weapon and looked dispassionately at the corpse lying face down on the floor in front of him.

Horatio nodded as he came out of his trance, having put the scene together to his satisfaction from what the evidence was telling him, the rest he could guess at. Being a CSI was, contrary to common belief, not just about the evidence, sometimes you had to understand people too.

----------------------------------------

_There's a few more chapters still to come after this one…stay tuned folks!!_


	12. Chapter 11

_Lerrinus - waves back _

_Net – Thanks Hon, it means the world to me!!_

--------------------------------------------

"Didn't you learn anything back up in the big smoke Caine?" The hint of joking amiability had all but vanished from Costa's manner, replaced instead by a feral snarl.

At first Horatio could see there was a twinge of fear in the interview subject's face as he had described what he had deduced had occurred at the scene, but the shock that laced Silvio's features had quickly been covered by a neutral mask, and then glossed over by an all too familiar air of superiority and confidence.

"I'm untouchable. All you got is a pile of circumstantial evidence. Hey, perhaps someone's tryin' to set me up with this."

"Not a chance Silvio, this has got you written all over it. There's no set-up here, and for once you're not going to wriggle out of this one."

Silvio paused, realising that the set-up route wasn't original, and that it certainly wouldn't hold much water with an investigator like Horatio Caine standing by to poke holes in his fabricated story.

"I will get off, Caine. Frankie's gonna get me the best damn lawyer there is. Just you watch, I'll be cruisin' down to South beach with the top down soakin' up some rays before your DA's even made his openin' statement to the judge. I'll be cleared so fast it'll make your head spin Blue. It's all about family, Caine."

Horatio stood, and started to pace unhurriedly around the room, speaking slowly and quietly so that Costa had to listen closely to what he was saying.

"That may be, but the Langella's aren't your family Silvio, you're just the hired help. You sure Frankie's going to help you out on this one?"

"What 'cha getting at Blue, you trippin' out on me again?" This time, Costa's smile didn't quite manage to disguise the stomach-churning worry that he was feeling and the casual throwaway line did nothing to hide his fear.

"I don't think he's going to be too happy when he finds out that because of your carelessness we got a search warrant for his property. Now there's a case full of Cuban cigars that we stumbled across while we were looking around, and I'd bet they've got Frankie's prints all over them. Seeing as how it's illegal to either import, sell or even buy Cuban cigars in America I'm wondering how he managed to get hold of them. I guess I'm going to have to start taking a closer look at Frankie's import business, and who knows what we'd find then?"

"You'd never find anythin' on Frankie, Caine. He's too smart for the NYPD, and damn if he ain't smarter than you."

Horatio had stopped pacing, halting his steady movement around the room directly behind Silvio's seated form. He leaned in close, until his mouth was just a few inches from Costa's ear.

"I might or might not find anything to charge him with. But you know what Silvio? I'm thorough in what I do, I might have to shut down Frankie's operation for months while I take a good comprehensive look at his business. And I'm willing to bet that the inconvenience I can cause him will really tick him off, I'd bet it'll be more than enough for him to want to get rid of you in a very permanent way. So here's your choice Silvio, either Frankie signs your death warrant and you die within the next six months, or the state signs it and you get maybe ten years before you face the needle. But hey there's always the chance you'd get lucky with one of your appeals and get your sentence knocked down to life imprisonment without parole."

Horatio walked back around the table and eased himself into the chair. Fixing his clear blue eyes on the subject in front of him. Costa glared back, now fully understanding the situation he was in.

"Sonofabitch Caine. I want my phone call now."

"Sure Silvio. Hey y'know what? This one's on my dime." Horatio pulled out his cellphone, punched in a series of numbers and slid it across the table. "Hey I even dialled in Frankie's number for you. Why don't you ask your boss what you should do?"

Silvio caught the phone and narrowed his eyes still further at Horatio.

"I guess you didn't stop bein' a New-Yorker as much as I first thought Caine. Still the wise-guy." Silvio said as he pushed the button to place the call to the number Horatio had dialled in.

"Ba-da bing ba-da boom." Horatio said quietly in a strong New York accent as he brought his hand down on the table with a light thud, a grin spreading over his face.

Later, as Horatio walked towards the elevator that would take him to the ground floor of the MDPD building Calleigh accosted him.

"Hey, is it safe for me to go home, or are you going to find another case for us to work on? It's been at least a week since we pulled a triple shift."

"I think it's safe, I might even turn my phone off just to make sure."

Calleigh laughed when he said that, knowing that the day Horatio Caine turned off his cell phone would be the day of Judgement itself.

"See you tomorrow Horatio."

"See you Calleigh."

He walked a little further down the corridor before Calleigh called after him.

"Oh and Horatio?"

He turned to listen.

"Bada-bing, bada-boom? What was that about?"

"Hey, what can I say, I guess you can take the guy out of New York…" He shrugged his shoulders, flashed a broad smile and a wink and turned away again, a little grin continuing to pull at the corners of his mouth.

------------------------------------

Ok, so if you came and stayed for the investigation – then that about wraps it up, I hope y'all enjoyed the ride - BUT if you're like me and love a bit of fluff to make you feel all warm and fuzzy stay tuned – there's two more chapters to come (which are most definitely full of the warm and fuzzies!!!)


	13. Chapter 12

A sharp knocking at the front door pulled Sharon's attention away from the book she was reading. From the kitchen Amelia called to her.

"Sharon honey can you go and see who's at the door? Don't forget to check the spy-hole to see who it is."

Sharon paused for a second, finding it strange that she was being allowed to answer the door all of a sudden. Ever since she'd been bought back to the safe house since the drive-by she'd been hidden away in a back room every time a car had even revved its engine loudly. The cops in the house all reached for the weapons at their hips whenever anyone walked past on the sidewalk. If she hadn't already been virtually paralysed with fear already those kind of reactions would've scared her senseless. But now she was being allowed to answer the door by herself? Something was going on Sharon told herself, but what weren't they telling her? _Damn law enforcement._

Amelia Masters watched as Sharon approached the door. The social worker snapped the cell phone she was holding shut and slipped it away into her purse, a smile playing on her lips. Rarely had she seen a case end so well.

Sharon virtually sneaked up to the door, as if afraid someone was going to burst through it at any second. Peering through the spy-hole all she could see was a gold police badge being held up to the hole, obscuring the visitor's face. She open the door a crack, peering out through the narrow aperture to see Horatio, hands on hips sunglasses on, his head down, looking at the floor. He looked up as the door opened.

"Hey kiddo, how about we get that take-out I promised you?"

Sharon didn't respond right away, instead she seemed to be thinking something over, and when she did respond, it wasn't the answer he thought he'd get.

"You got him Horatio?"

"Yep, we got him." He smiled in a reassuring way.

"So, that means that I'm not in danger any more right?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Far from the beaming smile of relief that he'd expected he was faced with a very serious and concerned look, her eyebrows pulled into a sharp angle and creases formed her face into a severe frown.

"So I've gotta go into care."

_Ah, so that's what she's getting at._ He reflected as he followed her train of thought. Horatio glanced beyond Sharon's shoulder and saw Amelia smile and nod her head, confirming that his earlier request could be fulfilled.

"Well, only if you desperately want to."

Her response was preceded with a pause, as she drew a breath to argue, and then her mind processed what he had said.

"What? I don't follow."

"I've had a chat with Miss Masters here."

There was a quiet thud as Amelia appeared, and dropped Sharon's bag, that contained the few clothes that Calleigh had collected from Sharon's home after the house had been processed, on the floor at Sharon's feet.

"And?" Sharon prompted, the curiosity now becoming overwhelming.

"And she's agreed that it would be ok for you to come and stay with me for a while."

Sharon's mouth opened and closed a few times, her eyes opened wide.

"Only if you want to though."

"Are you kidding? Of course I want to."

After Horatio had left Silvio Costa in the interview room he had placed a call through to Amelia Masters' cell phone requesting that Sharon come and stay with him for a while, _purely for ongoing police protection_ he had said, and instantly knew that Amelia had seen through the suggestion when he heard the soft chuckle from the other end of the phone, but to her credit she hadn't made any smart remarks, and had just said that she thought it would be a good idea and that she'd relay the suggestion to her superior. Ten minutes later she'd called him back to say that his request had been approved and that Sharon could move in whenever she wanted to.

"Well come on then." Sharon said as she picked up the bag from the floor and started towards the door. "That take-out isn't going to collect itself." She waved at Amelia who waved back, who, turning her attention from Sharon to the red-haired Lieutenant, winked at Horatio, secretly wondering if he knew exactly what he'd let himself in for.

-----------------------------------------

_Ooh, the penultimate chapter already. I'm glad you're still reading, hope you're enjoying the bit of fuzzyness going on here…there's more to follow!_


	14. Chapter 13

Here goes…the last chapter… 

-----------------------------------

"Oof."

Horatio was suddenly and rudely awakened by having all the breath pummelled out of his lungs as something dive-bombed onto him. No, make that someone rather than something. He rubbed his eyes and tried to make the room come into focus, when his eyes refused to work properly he reached out and pulled the clock from the bedside cabinet, lifting it to his face and reading the time. It was six am, and something at the back of his mind told him that it was Sunday. What the hell was he doing awake at this time on a Sunday?

There was a giggle, and Horatio became aware of a sharp poking on his shoulder, turned his head to try to locate the source of the irritation and suddenly lay back down in bed and covered his head with a pillow.

"Gnph." He groaned into the pillow. "Sharon go back to bed, it's too early."

There was one last sharp poke at his shoulder and Horatio felt the mattress shift as Sharon stood up. Bright sunlight poured into the room as she pulled back the blinds.

"You said we'd go to the beach today."

"I meant at a reasonable hour."

Sharon just stood there looking so dejected, her eyes wide, giving him that lost puppy look that she knew he couldn't resist. Eventually Horatio relented.

"Oh, alright then. Go put the coffee machine on, I get the feeling I'm going to need a serious amount of caffeine."

Horatio would be the first to admit he'd forgotten just how much energy teenagers had, but despite being exhausting, he had been surprised how much he enjoyed having the company.

Sharon had been a house guest for over a month now, and they were gradually falling into some sort of routine, if he wasn't already at a crime scene Horatio would drop Sharon off at school on his way into the lab, and when school finished Sharon would take the short bus ride down to the crime lab to wait for Horatio to finish his shift. If the case looked like it would need some serious overtime he always made the time to drop Sharon back at his condo before returning to work. Since Sharon had moved in his overtime had dropped significantly, and he hadn't worked such long shifts that forced him to curl up on the sofa in his office just to catch an hours sleep before the rest of his team would be back into the lab for their next working day. He had even amazed Alexx by leaving before she did on a few occasions.

"Come on Horatio, hurry up. The sun'll have gone down by the time you're ready to go."

The comment came winging its way through from the kitchen, accompanied by a strong, pleasant smell of coffee. He smiled.

"Alright, I'm coming. Calm down." He called back as he opened the wardrobe. Faced with a wall of designer suits, he swept his eyes over the neatly arranged closet in an attempt to locate anything that was a lighter colour than the usual black or charcoal grey that he usually wore. _Now where had he put those khakis?_

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

It had been a fun day, Horatio had to admit. He couldn't remember the last time he'd enjoyed ice-cream on the beach, even if the wind had peppered the snack with a layer of grit. Sharon had run around and splashed in the warm turquoise blue waters wearing her newly purchased swim-suit, Horatio had flatly refused to buy her a bikini, despite her pleas, a decision at which she had pouted a little, but he wasn't going to be swayed on this one, so she'd ended up with a stylish one-piece. He'd had to bite his tongue to stop himself from starting the sentence 'no daughter of mine…' as a response to Sharon's argument. Then they'd watched a movie, the latest James Bond instalment apparently. Sharon had sat transfixed by the movie, while Horatio had been amused by the sheer bizarreness of the plotline, although he'd enjoyed it nonetheless. _Sometimes_, he mused, _it was just nice to let go of reality for a while._

Now, as the sun gradually hid itself away behind the palms, he leaned on the railing that lined the small balcony outside his home watching as the buildings of Miami were painted in oranges and reds by the dying sun. A mostly empty glass of iced tea sat on a nearby table and his sunglasses, redundant now that the glare of the sun had vanished, held lightly in his hands. Horatio was deep in thought, his eyes unfocused, not really seeing anything of the vista that lay before him. He dropped his head down to look at the sunglasses he held in his hands, twirling them over and over as a series of thoughts ran quickly through his mind. He found himself wondering if this way of life could continue. He'd never really had what many people would deem to be a 'normal' life, and up until this moment it had never really bothered him. But now, having been given a taste at what that existence could be like; he had to admit that he didn't want to give it up. Suddenly he could fully comprehend what the phrase 'ignorance is bliss' really meant.

The official papers had mysteriously appeared in his in-box one day, an envelope addressed to himself, clearly hand-delivered, although he had no idea by whom, and the application forms that were contained within had started his mind racing with thoughts that he'd only ever allowed himself to consider in the deepest depths of his subconscious mind.

Now, he picked up the envelope that he'd been carrying around with him for over a week from the table and pulled out the contents, perusing the information on the top sheet for what must be the hundredth time.

Sharon clomped her way out of the living room, and onto the patio, the sandals on her feet making sharp slapping sounds as she walked. Horatio quickly shoved the papers back into the envelope. She looked at him questioningly, but didn't make any comment about the hastily hidden paperwork.

Sharon took a seat at the table. Horatio turned, his back towards the orange sunset, leaning his elbows back on the railings at the edge of the balcony.

"What's up?"

Sharon sighed a little.

"Nothing really. Just thinking. I still miss them, mom and dad I mean, I know it's crazy to miss them when they put me in that kind of situation, but I don't know, I still think about them a lot."

Horatio pondered the statement for a moment before pushing himself away from the railings and sat down in the chair opposite Sharon at the table.

"I don't think it's crazy at all. They were your parents, you loved them. It's normal for you to miss them, no matter what situation you were in. You shouldn't feel ashamed for feelings which come naturally." He shrugged his shoulders.

It was amazing, Sharon thought, that one brief comment spoken in Horatio's straightforward manner could make her feel so much better.

_No,_ Horatio thought,_ now is not the best time to broach the subject._ He glanced quickly at the envelope that lay on the table.

Horatio pushed the chair back and stood up.

"Ok then kiddo, how about I get us something to eat?" As Horatio walked in through the open slide door into the air-conditioned condo he grinned slightly to himself remembering his first foray into the kitchen soon after his young house-guest had moved in. He had pulled open all the cupboards in an attempt to find anything that could be served together and would make an edible meal, and had failed miserably. Fifteen minutes later he was paying the delivery guy as he took possession of bags of takeout for the second night running. He had been more than a little red-faced as he'd laid the meal out on the table and had shrugged his shoulders in response to Sharon's quizzical glance.

"I guess we'd better go do some grocery shopping tomorrow."

"Y'reckon? Not that I don't love Chinese food Horatio, but I don't think I could live on the stuff."

They'd laughed, and Sharon had continued to tease him for the rest of the evening about his possible cooking phobia.

It wasn't even as if he was a bad cook, actually he was pretty good, even if he did say it himself. The problem was that with his previous schedule he simply hadn't spent much time at home. Breakfast was usually just a mug of coffee grabbed from the break room before his shift had started. Lunch, if he got time for it, was anything he could eat quickly and with one hand while he was driving to, or from, a scene, and dinner? Well to be honest Horatio couldn't actually remember the last time he'd left the office in time to make himself dinner.

Now he moved like an expert in the kitchen pulling pans out and grabbing ingredients from various cupboards, and there was an appealing smell emanating from the pan on the stove by the time he heard a shuffling sound behind him. Turning, he saw Sharon standing in the entrance to the kitchen.

"Seriously Horatio?" She asked.

He was puzzled at first, wondering what she was talking about, but then his eyes moved to her hand which held the envelope that he must've left outside on the table. _Damn it_ he thought, he could kick himself for being so careless. Sharon obviously hadn't been able to contain her curiosity and had taken a peek at what was inside. He didn't blame her for being inquisitive, after all, he was a CSI he was basically paid to be nosey, to say anything would be a little hypocritical he thought.

"I…you…I…?" Sharon uttered, unable to string a coherent sentence together. Horatio interrupted in an attempt to rescue her from the one-syllable wilderness she'd stumbled into.

"Listen, it's just something I was looking into, Ok? It's totally up to you, completely your choice. I guess I shouldn't even have…"

Sharon interrupted him.

"I didn't think you'd want… It's up to me? You're kidding, you're thinking of adopting me and you think I'm likely to say no? Horatio you're crazy. It'd be a dream come true."

If it was possible to sob and giggle at the same time that was the sound that Sharon made as Horatio took a step towards her and wrapped his arms around her.

"Um, Horatio?" Sharon pulled back a little and scrunched her nose up.

"Yep?"

"I think something's burning."

When he'd managed to fan most of the pungent smoke out of the window, and salvage most of the meal he served up a slightly more chargrilled than planned offering. He watched Sharon as they ate, a grin plastered on his face. Looking up and catching him watching, and she smiled in return.

"Y'know, I always kinda thought of you as an uncle anyway, I guess now I just get to call you dad."

"'Horatio' will do just fine." Although he wondered how many times she'd have to meet Eric, Ryan or Calleigh before she started calling him 'H'.

Sitting back, he let out a contented sigh, _family,_ he thought, _yeah family was what it was all about._

-------------------------------------------------------

_I did warn you there was a lot of warm fuzzies in this chapter!_

_Well that about wraps this fanfic up. I really hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it._

_A huge thank-you to my reviewers (who have given me a lot of confidence with my first fanfic) and to anyone that's been lurking anonymously and reading this._ _I've already started on another fic, so I'll definitely be back soon!_

_All that's left for me to say is a big **Merry Christmas** to you all. So Happy Holidays everyone and take care. (This greeting may not make sense to anyone who finds this fic around about April time-ish – but oh well)_

To HoratioMarisol, who this was written for, I hope you enjoyed this too, I hope you have an awesome Christmas hon, and a brilliant New Year!


End file.
